Edge of Danger

by Katie Reus

  Chapter 2

  Wet work: expression for murdering or assassinating someone (wet alluding to the spilling of blood).

  One week later

  Tucker Pankov ran a hand over his buzz cut, the dampness from his shower already drying. He’d be glad to grow his hair out again and spend at least a week at his place in solitude. He lived in a three-bedroom home in the Virginia countryside. He’d chosen to have acres and acres of space between him and his neighbors over a larger house in a suburb. He was rarely here and when he did get downtime, he craved the quiet.

  For his last undercover job, as a psychopathic thug, he’d shaved his head, making himself look more the part of drug-peddling scum. He’d kept his same alias from the job he’d worked before that one with a true psychopath, Tasev, and it was a relief to shed that persona.

  It was also a fucking relief that bastard was dead, even if the DEA hadn’t been the ones to officially bring him down. He was still surprised that his boss, Deputy Director Max Southers, hadn’t been upset when the NSA brought down Tasev and his entire operation instead of his elite undercover DEA team, but in the end, Tucker didn’t care who’d done it. He didn’t care about the accolades, just the result.

  As he stepped into his bedroom, he turned on the television. Headlines from last week’s attack on a political fund-raiser dominated everything.

  Tucker should probably have been surprised by the attack, but little could shock him anymore. The drone that had carried out the attack should never have been stolen in the first place. Heads were already rolling over that “oversight” in security, and while he cared about the massive loss of life, it had nothing to do with the DEA. At least not at the moment.

  On the screen, Clarence Cochran, a politician who’d just announced his intention to seek the next presidential nomination for his party, was talking about the avoidable loss of life of a man who would have been running against him. Acting as if he cared.

  Tucker rolled his eyes. For the most part politicians in Washington only cared about themselves. He actually belonged to the same political party as Cochran, but the guy was too much of an extremist. That was dangerous no matter what side of the political aisle a man stood on. For the next election he’d be voting against the party line if that moron made a play for the presidency. Tucker was reaching for the remote to turn it off when a breaking report flashed on the screen.

  Max Southers, Deputy Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, murdered in violent carjacking.

  He blinked, ice invading his veins as he stared numbly at the screen, before he turned up the volume. Max was dead? No fucking way. He’d just talked to him a couple of hours ago. Someone would have alerted him.

  “You need a break, son, and I’m ordering it. Take a week off and just relax.” The corners of Max’s dark blue eyes had crinkled in concern as he watched Tucker from across his desk.

  Max called everyone in their team “son.” It should have annoyed Tucker, since he had a father, but he loved the man. They all did. They’d all spent countless dinners at the man’s house during their off time. Swallowing hard, he sat on the edge of his bed and listened as a somber-looking reporter talked about Max’s murder, basically saying nothing at all. The police had no leads. They didn’t know if this was random or related to one of his cases.

  Fuck.

  Standing, he grabbed his phone from his nightstand. He needed to call the rest of the team and Mary, Max’s wife. Hell, he needed to verify that this was even true. If they’d reported this without telling her first . . . hell no. He immediately rejected that. The DEA wouldn’t have allowed that to happen. Unless the local PD had fucked it up and there’d been a leak. Because why had no one called the team first?

  As he started to call Cole, his phone buzzed, his teammate’s name appearing on-screen. Still numb, he answered, “You see the news?”

  “Yeah.” Cole’s voice was grim. “Anyone contact you about it first?”

  “No.”

  “I tried Mary and she’s not answering.”

  Tucker’s throat tightened as he stared blindly at the muted television. “You believe he’s dead?”

  “I . . . don’t know. I can’t imagine them running with the story unless they were positive.”

  “I’ll call in a bit. We’ll take care of her if it is.” Mary and Max had been together thirty years. She’d been with Max since his Navy days, enduring long deployments and raising their two kids basically by herself for months on end. Max had been ready to retire in the next two years, to travel with his wife the way he deserved. Tucker’s free hand curled into a fist. “And we’re going to find out whoever did this.”

  “Fuck yeah.” Cole’s voice was raspy, the edge in the normally laid-back man’s voice razor-sharp. “What the . . . are you watching the news still?”

  “Yeah, hold on.” He unmuted it, frowning as he listened to the reporter’s words. Neither he nor Cole spoke for the next few minutes as he digested everything the man on the news was saying. The news station had received an anonymous tip that a Shiâ terrorist group was responsible for the murder of Max, that it wasn’t a carjacking at all.

  What. The. Hell.

  “It doesn’t seem possible,” Tucker muttered. “Have you heard from the Leopard recently?” Leopard was their code word for Ali Nazari, an agent they had embedded in a high-profile Shiâ terrorist organization. Almost no one knew of his undercover role—just Max, Tucker, Cole, and two other teammates. It was too dangerous otherwise.

  “No. We need to make sure the Leopard’s files—”

  “Max had a fail-safe in place in case something happened to him. I’ll tell you about it, but not now.” Never over the phone, even if their cells were encrypted. He’d drawn in a breath to continue when the power suddenly went off, his television and the steady hum of his heater going silent. Dawn was breaking, so he could see well enough without the lamp on his nightstand, but he didn’t often lose power and there wasn’t a storm raging. Maybe a breaker had flipped. “Let me call you back in a sec.”

  “All right.”

  As they disconnected, he pulled on a pair of jogging pants and grabbed his sidearm from his nightstand. Even though he knew it was loaded, he checked the magazine out of habit. Full. Exiting his room, he moved on silent feet down the hallway that led to the living room and kitchen. As he made his way, he passed the keypad for his alarm system, and a shot of adrenaline punched through him.

  It was off.

  The system was wireless and not linked to his power system, and it never went off-line. Not even when he lost power. He traveled most of the year and wanted his house secure even when he was gone, which was why he’d opted for this specific system. No way had it gone off without help. This was intentional.

  His heart rate kicked up a fraction. Ducking into the closest room, his office, he quickly swept it. Empty. He moved to the window and had started to pull back the curtains when he heard a creak.

  It was quiet, almost imperceptible, but he knew every sound his house made. It had been built in the forties and had real wood floors he’d had refurbished. And Tucker knew exactly where that creak had come from. A board at the beginning of the hallway, right where the kitchen opened up. It had a very distinctive sound.

  Weapon in hand, he moved away from the window and crept to the doorway, giving himself enough room to have his pistol out and drawn without the worry of it being taken from him if someone attacked. If someone made a move, they wouldn’t be able to make it to him before he fired a few rounds.

  Whoever was in his home had to know Tucker was aware of his presence. Or at least guess. The house was too silent. Which took away a little of his advantage.

  As he waited, everything around him sharpened, his senses going into straight battle mode. Someone could be here to rob him, but his gut told him otherwise.

  He lived far enough out that his place wasn’t easy to find, and disabling his security system would have taken time and an expertise far beyond your avera
ge thief.

  Another creak. This one closer.

  Tucker tensed, his finger on the trigger. He wasn’t just going to blindly shoot, but he was ready.

  Another creak. That one next to the guest bathroom door.

  Which meant the intruder would be in his path in three, two, one.

  “Drop your weapon! Put your hands in the air!” Tucker shouted as the hooded man came into view, his own weapon—with a fucking suppressor—drawn. “Now, or I drop you where you stand.” His voice was quieter now, his intent clear in each word. All it would take was a bullet to the head.

  It was hard to read his facial expression because of the hood, but the man stood right around six feet, had a solid build. Wearing all black, including rubber-soled boots that made almost no sound, the intruder looked like a pro.

  The silenced weapon clattered to the floor, the sound overpronounced in the quiet of his home, before the man put his hands in the air. When he moved, Tucker could see the bulky outline of a vest. If he had to take a killing shot, it would be to the head.

  “Kick it away.”

  The man did as Tucker said.

  “On your knees.”

  Silently the man started to kneel down but at the last second leaped forward.

  Training kicked in automatically. Tucker fired, hitting the man in his calf as he tried to dive out of the way.

  The hooded man cried out as Tucker swept into the hallway, conscious of his six as he trained his weapon on the guy.

  He’d grabbed his fallen weapon.

  Shit.

  Tucker fired, two shots to the middle of the forehead. Normally he’d take a center mass shot, but there was no point with the guy wearing a vest.

  The man stilled, dropping back with a thud as his weapon hand fell loudly against the wooden floor of the hallway. Tucker moved carefully, kicking it away before he checked the man’s pulse and took off the hood. By the time he’d pulled it off, there was a slight blue tinge around his eyes, nose, and mouth.

  Certain he was dead, Tucker checked his person for any identifiers and found none before he moved on to the rest of his house. Next he cleared his garage, then the shed. Before moving on he turned his power back on and reconnected the alarm. Resetting it so no one could infiltrate his house while he was gone, he swept his property. He found a four-door car with mud smeared on the license plate hidden off the side of the road about a mile away. Unfortunately there weren’t any identifying papers inside. He memorized the plate, then raced back to his place.

  Careful to avoid the blood pooling in the hallway, he grabbed his cell and found two missed calls. Both from Cole. As he pulled out his fingerprint kit, he called his friend back. He was going to call the police, but he was taking the guy’s prints first. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the locals, but the DEA had more resources and this was clearly personal.

  Which meant the chances of this being linked to one of his cases was high. He had to know what and who he was dealing with, and he’d get answers faster than the local PD.

  “Someone just tried to kill me,” Cole said by way of greeting. “Can’t identify him, but he was a professional.”

  Well, hell. “Me too. You called the cops yet?”

  “No. Someone also went after Brooks. This isn’t fucking random,” he snarled.

  “Anyone contacted Kane?” The last member of their elite group.

  “Can’t get ahold of him.”

  Tucker reined in a curse. “Get the prints of your guy. Then pack a bag. Can you dispose of the body?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do it. Then we rendezvous at location bravo.” Their team had five backup places to meet if the shit ever hit the fan. They were all random and none had ties to any of them. Tucker picked the second location because it was the first that popped into his mind.

  “You sure no cops?”

  “You want to alert whoever sent these guys after us that they failed?” Because the moment they did that, they’d become sitting targets. No, they needed to ghost out while whoever was gunning for them thought they were dead or about to be. Then they’d regroup and figure this thing out.

  “I know. Just feels like we’re crossing a line.”

  Tucker snorted. He’d cross whatever line necessary to keep his men alive. “Bring all your weapons, ammo, passports—real and aliases—any burner phones and all your electronics if you’re sure they’re not traceable. We need to figure out who’s after us.”

  “On it. I’ll keep trying Kane.”

  “Me too.” After they disconnected, Tucker packed everything he needed, then took care of the body and blood, storing the dead man in the trunk of the car he’d abandoned on the side of the road. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to dispose of a body, not with the jobs he’d been assigned to, but it was the first time he’d removed one from his own home and wasn’t telling anyone else about it. He cleaned up the blood the best he could, but if pros came in here with luminol they’d find the evidence.

  But if anyone else came out here looking for him, he’d be long gone before they got here.

  He needed to stay alive. Because whoever had come after his men had made the biggest mistake of his life.

  Chapter 3

  Six: in military and law enforcement slang, “six” means “back.” Phrases like “watch your six” or “I’ve got your six” mean to “watch your back” or “I’ve got your back.” In warfare, your six is the most vulnerable position.

  “I don’t like this.” Cole rubbed a hand over his newly cut blond hair. For the Tasev infiltration he’d kept it shaggy, playing the part of a mindless soldier. Now he looked like his usual deadly self.

  “What the fuck else are we gonna do?” Kane demanded from the front passenger seat of the SUV he, Tucker, Cole, and Brooks were in.

  Tucker shifted against his seat in the back. He didn’t like this plan any more than Cole, but they had to do something. Their places were all under surveillance—by whom, they hadn’t figured out yet—and they couldn’t go into work because it was the first place their enemy would expect them. Plus, they didn’t know if someone in the DEA had set them up. Their top-security clearances had been revoked in the system at work, which was a huge red flag. None of them could log in to anything past a basic level online. With such limited access, they were pretty much working blind. Could be a glitch, but likely not, since it had happened to all four of them.

  It wasn’t as if a replacement had been named for Max yet, so they had no one to turn to. No one they trusted anyway. Because of their undercover jobs, they were insulated from the majority of the people in the office for their safety and everyone else’s. In short, they were fucked right now with no way to know if they’d been set up or even if they’d be arrested if they attempted to head into the office. “It’s been two days since Max died¸” Tucker said quietly.

  “And Ali guarantees it’s not the Shiâs,” Brooks said from the front, never looking back at them as he surveyed the quiet park.

  It was before dawn and everything but the sidewalks was covered in a light dusting of snow. The street sweepers had been out about an hour ago to clear and salt everything. This was a well-used park in a nice part of Baltimore where crime was pretty much unheard-of.

  Until now.

  “Burkhart’s not returning my e-mails.” Tucker hated every bit of what they were about to do, but they needed an ally. Of course, what they were about to do was just as likely to make them enemies and put them on another hit list. They had nothing to lose at this point. “This will get his attention.”

  Cole snorted. “And it’ll get us bullets in the head.”

  Maybe. Tucker shook his head. “Max trusted him.” Hell, Burkhart was part of Ali’s fail-safe plan if the agent ever got hung out to dry or Max died during the middle of an op. He wasn’t even with the DEA, but as the deputy director of the NSA and a lifelong friend of their former boss, Burkhart was a man Max had clearly thought had integrity.

  Tucker hoped he was righ
t.

  “We’re running out of time and we need help.” Kane’s voice was determined, mirroring Tucker’s feelings.

  “I see a female runner,” Brooks said from the front, his voice grim. “Could be her.”

  “It’s go time. Apparently,” Cole tacked on, making his agitation clear.

  But in the end, they were a team and no matter what, they’d act as one cohesive unit. They trusted one another in the field and they’d support one another in this. Even though Cole was pissed, Tucker knew he’d have his back no matter what.

  He just hoped this plan didn’t turn around and blow their lives apart. Moving quietly with Cole, Tucker slid out of the vehicle and made his way to a cluster of trees that lined the park. He hated this plan, but forced his doubts away because he didn’t see any other option. They had to do this.

  Karen Stafford loosened her scarf around her neck as her sneakers pounded against the pavement. Despite the chilly January weather, she’d been jogging for thirty minutes and had started to sweat a while ago under all her layers.

  Inhaling the crisp air, she savored the quiet of the neighborhood as she made her way to her favorite park. This early she didn’t run through the park, just around it where she was still visible along main roads. She also didn’t run with an MP3 player because she liked the time to be alone with her own thoughts without any outside noise. She rarely got that with her high-pressure job at the NSA. Even if she didn’t have the job she did, she still wouldn’t run with noise pumping in her ears. She liked to be aware of her surroundings at all times.

  She carried bear spray with her—because no mugger or would-be rapist was going to be able to withstand that kind of pain—and a switchblade. A gift from her brother, Clint, who’d died in Afghanistan seven years ago. Whenever he’d come home he always brought her gifts. Usually weapons because he’d been determined that she be able to protect herself since he couldn’t be here. As if he could have watched out for her twenty-four/seven if he’d been here anyway, which was a ridiculous concept. But he’d always been so protective. He’d been more like a parent to her than their own useless father had ever been. Even though she missed Clint every day, she knew she was lucky that she’d had someone who cared about her, who would have done anything for her. Still, some days were harder than others and she wished she had someone in her life. Not just anyone, though, because she’d never settle. She’d seen friends do that and it was depressing.